{"id":49464,"date":"2014-06-01T08:31:56","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T12:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=49464"},"modified":"2014-06-01T08:31:56","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T12:31:56","slug":"gop-pow-exchange-was-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=49464","title":{"rendered":"GOP: POW exchange was illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bowe-bergdahl\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

I’m glad that Bowe Bergdahl has been released. I’m glad no one lost their lives getting him released. Enough troops lost their lives in the search for him, already – apparently those losses should be laid at Bergdahl’s feet – they were killed looking for him. But some Republican lawmakers are charging that the whole exchange process – Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo – was illegal, according to the Associated Press<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon of California and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said in a statement that Obama is required by law to notify Congress 30 days before any terrorists are transferred from the U.S. facility. They said Obama also is required to explain how the threat posed by such terrorists has been substantially mitigated.<\/p>\n

McKeon is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Inhofe is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The White House admits that they acted outside of the requirements because the circumstances warranted their quick actions.<\/p>\n

The White House agreed that actions were taken in spite of legal requirements and cited “unique and exigent circumstances” as justification.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Regardless, the laws are there for a reason. The Long War Journal<\/a> says that these five who we released in exchange for Bergdahl weren’t just a couple of run-of-the-mill sheepherders who were swept up in a raid. They were all top officials of the Taliban – a governor, a senior commander, a senior intelligence official and a deputy defense minister – folks who probably would have remained incarcerated if they hadn’t been exchanged for Bergdahl.<\/p>\n

So, aside from the troops who gave their lives looking for Bergdahl, the exchange to get him back costs us something in regards to the success of the mission in Afghanistan. I’m not going to criticize the White House for bending some laws to get Bergdahl back, but I’m sure partisans will, just like partisans against President Bush would have under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n

But, Bergdahl needs to pay a price for wandering off and costing the US so much – including the lives of the folks who tried to rescue him in the early days of his capture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m glad that Bowe Bergdahl has been released. I’m glad no one lost their lives getting … GOP: POW exchange was illegal<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}